CHAPTER II.

THE NEW WORLD.

When the news of this land of gold spread over the world, Eng-land and France and Spain all sent ships to see what they could find. They each thought they would like to have a slice. The Eng-lish thought they had some rights, as one of their men, named Ca-bot, had, in truth, been the first to touch this new shore. The next time he came, he made his way down the coast to what we call Vir-gin-ia, and set up a claim for Eng-land.

Then the King of France sent a man to plant his flag here, and he gave the name of New France to part of our coast. But though Eng-land and France both set claim to the land, they did not send men here to live for a long time.

At last Queen E-liz-a-beth gave one of the great men at court, called Sir Wal-ter Ral-eigh, a claim to a large tract of land in A-mer-i-ca. He came with two ships, and found the red skins kind. They brought him gifts, and he went back to tell of all the strange things he had seen, and some came to live on the new shores. But the red skins were hard to live with, and the small group of white men could get no food, and were near death, when a brave man, named Sir Fran-cis Drake, came with a ship and took them off to their homes. The next band that came met a sad fate, for they all fell by the hand of the red men.

There were some in Eng-land who had a great wish to see this new world. They thought they would like to live in a land with no King, and have a church where they could pray to God in their own way. They were called "Pil-grims," for they went from place to place and would sing psalms and pray, and they were full of joy at the thought of their new home.

Do you know the name of the ship they came in? It is a sweet name, and you must keep it in your mind--The May-flow-er. They did not have a smooth trip, and a storm blew them on to the coast of Mass-a-chu-setts. It was bare and cold, but it was nice to see land at all. There were all sorts of fowl there, and they saw a whale; but when they went to shoot it the gun burst. They made their way to a vale where there was a spring, and there they took their first drink in the new land.

There was a rock called Plym-outh Rock, and here they made their homes and built the first house. It was in 1620, in a cold time of the year, that the May-flow-er brought her crew to Plym-outh Rock. There was not much food, and they had from the first a foe whom they could not trust or make a friend. These were a new race of men. They had brown skins; were tall and straight, with long, coarse black hair. They had no books, and got their food in the hunt, or caught fish in the streams. They made boats of birch bark--queer, long things, with a point at each end. They could make bows, and would pound their corn with two stones for their bread. They took the skins of beasts for their clothes, for they knew how to dress them. Each tribe had its head man, called a chief, and their great joy was in war. When their foes took them, they would not pray for their lives. They were brave in their own way, and would show no fear at the sight of the fire that was to burn their flesh.

Their wives, the squaws, would dress the food and do all the hard work at home. They were the ones who dug each small patch of ground and put in the beans and corn. The men had a scorn for work. They were made to fight, they thought. They would say, "The Great Chief gave the white man a plow and the red man a bow, and sent them in the world to gain food, each in his own way."

In this new land there was not a horse, cow, sheep, cat, dog, or hen to be found. You would not like such a place, would you? What did the young people do for pets in those days? No chicks to feed, no puss with her soft, warm fur, for small hands to stroke.

But the new homes were not left in peace. The red men saw that their doom was near. They felt that they would have to move on and on, to give place to these men who knew so much; who read books and had schools, and taught their young ones to pray. So they took the guns that they had bought from the white men and went to war with them. When they took them they would tie them fast to stakes, burn them to death, and all the time the flames were at work, these fierce red men would dance a war dance of joy. They bought rum from the white men, and it made them like brutes.

They knew that the white men had come to take their land, and that was cause for their hate. And so the white men, in their turn, felt no love for the red skin, and thought they did well to push him back more and more, and take all they could from him. The white men were to blame, for they first gave the vile rum to the red men, and that made them wild. They would burn down the white man's house at night, and kill his wife and babes. Think how sad it must be to wake up in the night and find the hot blaze of a fire in your face, and the wild war-whoop of an In-di-an in your ears. But you can lie down in your bed in peace, for there is no one to harm you--you live in good times.

But those who were brave enough to come and live in this new land, had a hard life at first. There were no snug farms as now, with fields of green corn and wheat. At times the poor men could not get much to eat, and one wrote home: "The crumbs that fall from your meals would be sweet to me. When I can get a cup of meal and boil It with a pinch of salt, I give thanks as for a great feast. The In-di-ans at times bring corn and trade it for clothes or knives. One day they gave me a peck of corn for a small dog. It would be a strange thing to see a piece of roast beef or veal here."

It will not seem strange, then, that, in such hard times, death came to these small bands and took some away. But those who were left kept up brave hearts, and would not go back to their old homes; and though all were so poor, there was not a case of theft in four years. They grew to like the land, and one said, "A sup of New Eng-land air is worth more than a draught of Old Eng-land ale."

For one of the first bands of men who came here, made their homes in a place to which they gave the name of New Eng-land, after their old home. As time went on each place grew to be a town, and soon had a church and a school of its own. If we had gone in one of those towns on the Lord's day, we would have seen some strange sights. As the clocks struck nine, there would come out a man who would beat a drum or blow a conch shell, or ring a bell to call all the folks to church. As we drew near to this church, we would have seen that it was built of logs, with a small flag to wave on it. There would be a fence of stakes round it, and a man with a gun on guard near it. Those who went in left all their guns in his care.

If you look at this church you will see that it has no glass panes like ours, but small and dull and thick ones set in lead. It is the style now to like that old thick glass, and to use it once more. You might see on the front of this church, near the door, the heads of wolves that had been slain in the hunt in the past year.

In this church the old men sat on one side, and the young men were not with them. They had their own place. So, too, the boys did not sit by the girls. Most of the boys sat on the stairs, and there was a man there as a sort of guard to see that they did not talk. He had a long rod or wand in his hand, with a hare's foot on one end, and a hare's tail on the other. He would let no one go to sleep. If he saw a girl nod, he would touch her on the face with the soft brush of the hare's tail; but if it were a boy who was caught in a nap, he got a sharp rap from the hare's foot. So you see in those times one could not make such a snug nest in the pew and take a long sleep as one does now; and they had to stay three or four hours in church. It must have been hard for small folks not to nod at times.

When they sung, it was out of a book by the name of "The Bay Psalm Book," and they did not know more than ten tunes. In those days no one could stay from church but for a good cause, or else they had to pay a fine. And if a man staid from church a month, he was put in the stocks, or in a cage of wood, where all could see him and laugh and jeer at him.

You do not know what stocks are in these times, but if you had stood in a New Eng-land town then, you would have seen a strange thing made of wood, by the road near the church. This queer frame of wood would hold a man fast so that he could not move, and you may think a day in the stocks would be hard to bear, and would make one's bones ache.

A house in such a town, in those days, was all built on the ground floor; so there were no stairs. It was made of earth or logs, and had a steep roof of thatch. The place for the fire was built of rough stones. It was large enough to burn logs four feet long, and had so much room in it that a man and his wife and boys and girls could sit in it and look up at the sky.

The dress in those days was not the same as it is now. The men wore small clothes, which came to the knee like a small boy's in these times, and they had stiff ruffs round their necks and caps of rich stuff on their heads. The young men wore fine belts, and great high boots which were made with a roll at the top. The girls wore silk hoods in the streets, and stiff rich gowns, with long waists, and lace caps on feast-days. But folks could not wear gay clothes if the law did not think they had means to spend for such fine things.

They had some queer laws in those days. Those who had done wrong had to stand in the stocks, which held them by the feet and neck, so they could not get away, or they had to mount stools in church. If a man had a wife who had the name of a bad scold, a cleft stick was put on her tongue, or she was made to take a cold dip in a stream. I dare say you think those were hard laws, and you are glad to live in these days. But that was a race who had the fear of God in their hearts; their aim was to do just right and to rule the land in the best way.